Upping the Inclusion Ante

A year and a half ago, in Nashville Tennessee, I was present at my first Disciples of Christ General Assembly as a voting delegate (all ordained clergy with standing are automatically eligible to vote at GA).  I was very happy to see that a resolution condemning youth and child bullying was up for passage, and as expected, it passed in a landslide.

There was one brief wrinkle, though—a colleague (though also a stranger to me at the time) got up in opposition of the resolution, claiming it was a thinly-veiled product of the GLBT-affirming wing of the Disciples (whatever that means…though it should be noted that I was wearing a t-shirt that said, “Make the DOC Gay Okay,” so, you know…maybe there is a machine after all=) ).  His comments received mostly crickets in response, but I happened to run into him by happenstance not long after the vote.  Not feeling like picking an argument at a sacred gathering, I instead blurted out the first thing that came into my head:

“Dude…I don’t agree with a single thing you just said, but damn, it took guts to say that.”

And it did.  Being grossly unpopular is never easy—just ask anyone who has survived junior high.  That doesn’t make what he said right.  But taking a stand usually involves some degree of courage.

And today, I must say that I am very heartened by the courage being shown on the other side of this issue (aka, “the pro-gay wing”) in the run up to this year’s GA in Orlando, Florida.  First Christian Church in Concord, California—the congregation I served for two years as their part-time student associate minister—is one of a number of Disciples congregations sponsoring a resolution to be voted on at the GA.  And this resolution reads, in part:

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) declares itself to be a people of grace and welcome to all God’s children—inclusive of race, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, ethnicity, marital status, or physical ability;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) affirms the faith, baptism, and spiritual gifts of all Christians regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and that neither are grounds for exclusion from fellowship or service within the church, but are a part of God’s good creation;

FINALLY, BE IT RESOLVED that all expressions of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), as a people of grace and welcome, are encouraged similarly to declare their support for the welcome and hospitality to all Christians, regardless of race, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, ethnicity, marital status, or physical ability.

(You can read the full version here.)

Mine will be a “yes” vote when this resolution comes to the floor of the GA.

Why?

Because while respecting the congregational autonomy the Disciples is built upon (with the term “are encouraged” in the final clause, rather than “are mandated”), this resolution essentially validates the ordination of GLBT clergy on a denominational level, which is something that needs to happen.

Why does this need to happen?

First and foremost, I believe it is Scriptural—not only does Scripture not prohibit gay and lesbian clergy (1 Timothy 3:1-13), but it also states that all are given spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:1-11).  These two are not mutually exclusive…ergo, it is entirely possible to be gay or lesbian and have the spiritual gift of ministry.

And it is not only Scriptural—in accordance with the current ethos of inclusion both inside and outside the Disciples, it is, quite simply, the right thing to do.  We have, for too long, allowed the church to remain a place where condemnation of a person based on their sexual orientation remains somehow acceptable.  This resolution is one small part of righting that longtime wrong.

Finally, this can be a great boon to the ranks of the clergy.  Yes, some congregations and pastors will get very upset if this passes.  But much like how the ordination of women eventually created a brand-new wave of God’s servants (in a number of seminaries now, female students outnumber male students), I hope that so too might the universal ordination of gay and lesbian Disciples pastors, who might offer a new source of Christian ministry in the coming years and decades.

Indeed, I had a number of openly gay and lesbian classmates at seminary who I would consider to be (from my own human perspective) extraordinarily qualified to serve as ordained clergy.

And while this takes a step beyond simply saying “gay bullying is wrong and sinful,” we’re also not asking anyone to reinvent the wheel here.

We’re not trying to do rocket science or brain surgery.

We’re just trying to live the Gospel by, just as Jesus did, making the ranks of Disciples teachers open to all qualified persons.

It’s really not that complicated.

And I am both proud and eager to be a vote in support of that effort.

Yours in Christ,
Eric

This Week's Sermon: "A Time to Build Up and a Time to Break Down"

Ecclesiastes 3:1-3

There’s a season for everything and a time for every matter under the heavens: 2 a time for giving birth and a time for dying, a time for planting and a time for uprooting what was planted, 3 a time for killing and a time for healing, a time for tearing down and a time for building up (CEB)

The medical student—a young man about to become a doctor—couldn’t believe his eyes.  In the midst of his home country Liberia’s civil war in 2004, soldiers wounded from battle began pouring into the hospital that he was stationed at.  He recalled, several years later, "One of the soldiers was not happy with how a nurse was taking care of his wound, and he slapped the nurse.  A doctor came over, to speak with the man. The soldier pushed his head through a window.”  As The Atlantic put it, this doctor:

“Explained that the attending physicians refused to treat the soldiers after the incident, and that many physicians subsequently fled the country, forcing the hospital to shut down.  "The minister of health at the time was the only surgeon in Liberia. And he was teaching anatomy, so he had a very strong influence over the medical students," (he) said. The sitting president, "through this minister, appealed to us to keep the hospital open. So we, the medical students, took over the hospital." At the time, this student had just advanced to his third year (in medical school). He was a student on a pediatric rotation, and he instantly became the head of pediatrics.”

After becoming a full-fledged attending, the doctor told of having to perform so many operations outside of his field of specialty, including even operating on his newborn daughter when there was no other surgeon in the sub-Saharan country who could perform the procedure that would correct his child’s birth defect.

Everywhere around him, he saw a health system that had been broken down—or that had not been built up to begin with.  The time to be broken down was over.  The doctor switched fields completely, moving from being a general practitioner to practicing surgery, and he is now the chief surgical resident of a 270-bed Christian hospital in Cameroon.

There, despite low pay and relatively little prestige, he and 25 other doctors practice their craft.

There, lives are saved so that they may be built up again.

This is a new, but relatively brief, sermon series for us to begin 2013.  This series is only three weeks long, which I think is about as short as a sermon series can be and still be called a series—otherwise, it would just be a two-volume set, right?  But we’re going to give the trilogy look a try for the rest of January as we press forward with a new year of being church together.  And the purpose of this series is to take a very famous and well-loved poem—the “To everything there is a season” stanza in the third chapter of the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes—and in it see where we are headed as a church.  A lot has changed in this past year and a half since I had the great blessing of being called by you to be your pastor, and so just like when I first arrived here by offering the “Ashes to Sunlight” sermon series, I want to touch base with all of you once more as we look at what possibilities there are for us as a church in the increasingly rapidly changing cultural and religious landscape that is the Pacific Northwest.  The challenge is, just as the author of Ecclesiastes often looks back, we must, by nature of where we are, look forwards!

The Liberian doctor’s story is a dramatic one, but one whose drama should not overshadow its relatibility to us as a church community.  Because spiritually, even if not physically, we have been there!  Spiritually, we were in the situation that many third-world hospitals are in physically—lots of worry that we did not have the means to meet the needs of the community in which we lived.

And believe it or not, misery loves company for a reason.  There are lots of other churches in the same boat we were and are in—wondering how we can speak to the spiritual needs of a new generation of believers who feel starved by the lack of spiritual nutrition in today’s day and age.

The writer of Ecclesiastes—traditionally believed to be King Solomon, the son of David—would definitely have been one such person today.  He is the author of immortal lines like, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!” “time and chance happens to us all,” and, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” 

If books in the Bible were Winnie the Pooh characters, Ecclesiastes would be Eeyore.  If books in the Bible were Dr. Seuss characters, Ecclesiastes would be the Grinch.  If books in the Bible were Sesame Street characters…well, you get the idea.

And as much as we might want to write of Solomon today as a Debbie downer, he is becoming increasingly a part of our target audience for today.  Because he’s also someone who, I think, wants to be optimistic, even if he cannot manage it all of the time.  And I say this precisely because of this poem in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes.

The Second Great Awakening-era Methodist theologian Adam Clarke had this to say, in part, about the poem:

God has given to man that portion of duration called time; the space in which all the operations of nature, of animals, and intellectual beings, are carried on; but while nature is steady in its course, and animals faithful to their instincts, man devotes it to a great variety of purposes; but very frequently to that for which God never made time, space, or opportunity. And all we can say, when an evil deed is done, is, there was a time in which it was done, though God never made it for that purpose…It is worthy of remark, that in all this list there are but two things which may be said to be done generally by the disposal of God, and in which men can have but little influence: the time of birth, and the time of death. But all the others are left to the option of man, though God continues to overrule them by his providence.

What Adam Clarke is saying is that, much how Solomon himself would likely see things, what is done is done, and it is that way precisely because that is how God created the world to be.  But, he says, we always have the option of doing all other manner of things.  There is a time to plant and a time to sow, but we are the ones who actually choose when to sow and when to reap.  God gives us the time and will to do so, but whether we actually do…well, that’s up to us.

And I absolutely, without a doubt, believe that God has given us this time as a time to build up after having been broken down.  Much like the world itself, we are capable of rising from the ashes of fire and dust and creating a new thing!  Just as Adam went from being mere dust and dirt  to being living merely through the breath of God, so too is it so for the church!

I warmly encourage you to attend the Annual General Meeting in two weeks’ time, because that is precisely what we will be discussing and voting on—creating a new thing…two new things, really.  One is a change to our Constitution to reflect how one formally becomes a member at FCC.  I am so, so proud to say that we have had four different households in the past two months come forward in our membership sessions to say that they wish to join us, and I want our Constitution to accurately reflect the journey folks now take to become a part of the body of Christ.

The other new thing is a change to our bylaws over how our Board is structured.  The changes are not huge—there will still be most of the officer positions you recognize—Moderator, Vice-Moderator, Member-at-Large, etc., but we are proposing combining some of the officer positions in order to help make the board more nimble, flexible, and responsive.

But enough with the boring stuff.  You’ll hear more about it in my State of the Church address at the Annual General Meeting, where, much like the President’s State of the Union address, I expect you to give me a standing ovation after every three sentences.  (In fact, why doesn’t that happen already during my sermons?)

To everything, there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.

A time to be born, and a time to die.

A time to plant, and a time to sow.

A time to kill, and a time to heal.

And there is a time to break down and a time to build up.

Thank God for that.  For that time is nothing less than one of God’s great gifts to us.  Let us use it well as we move forward in this new year together.

May it be so.  Amen.

Rev. Eric Atcheson

Longview, Washington

January 13, 2013

Louie Giglio's Self-Thrown Pity Party

Maybe we pastors should get out of the blessing-of-government-functions business for good.  After all, the state has no business telling us how to worship, and when we do try some version of state-sanctioned worship, it doesn't always end well (see also: the outcry over Rick Warren delivering the benediction at President Obama's first inaugural ceremony in 2009).

The thing is, I honestly didn't care that much about Warren's presence at the first inauguration.  I don't agree with everything he says, but the President, just like any one of us, has the right to seek spiritual leadership from whomever s/he wishes.  If we don't like it, we can support a different politician who more closely shares our religious preferences.

That being said, the way that Louie Giglio is behaving in the wake of the outcry over his overt homophobia from the 1990's is embarrassing to me as a pastor and as Christian.

The controversy stems from a sermon Giglio gave in the mid-1990s, from which CNN (among others) reports he offered some extreme views on homosexuality, including the "pray the gay away" notion that homosexuality is an affliction from which one can be cured.

Notably, in the midst of this controversy, Giglio has NOT, to my knowledge, renounced those views.  Instead, he withdrew from his role of delivering the benediction at President Obama's second inaugural ceremony (the same role Rick Warren had at the first inauguration).

Again, there's nothing wrong with that.  If Giglio feels his presence is inappropriate, withdrawing is probably the best course of action.

It's how he has gone about doing so that has left me shaking my head.

In a statement published in part by NBC, Giglio says in part, "Due to a message of mine tha thas surfaced from 15-20 years ago, it is likely that my participation and the prayer I would offer will be dwarfed by those seeking to make their agenda the focal point of the inauguration." (emphasis mine)

The fact that Giglio is playing into a terrible stereotype--the sinister specter of the "homosexual agenda"--means he most certainly has not repented of his earlier homophobia, and in all likelihood still holds on to some of those beliefs.

More inexplicably, though, I seriously have no idea where Giglio gets off acting like he is the victim in all of this by the gay and lesbian community.

For decades--longer than I have been alive--gays and lesbians have been unjustly demonized by many, many Christian churches.  In the cases of people like Matthew Shepard, they have paid for that demonization with their lives.  Meanwhile, Christianity continues to be the most popular religion in both the United States and the world, and unlike the queer community, the First Amendment explicitly protects us.  And yet, Giglio, rather than actually owning what he says and believes, has the chutzpah to suggest that he is being drowned out by a community who has been marginalized and oppressed by the church for ages.

And not that it's perhaps of any great concern, but it's stuff like this which makes my job--and the jobs of many other pastors--of healing what is already a terribly broken and sinful world harder.

But more importantly, it makes the lives of my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in Christ more painful.  And it shouldn't.

And for that, I have to think it makes God's mercy even more necessary than it already was, if that's even possible.

Give us grace, Lord.

Yours in Christ,

Eric

Javert Redeemed?

(Trigger word warning: suicide.  Also, there be Les Mis spoilers in this post.  You have been warned.)

Like everybody else and their mother, I spent a day of my holiday vacation seeing Les Miserables at the theater.

As can be expected if you know me at all, I loved it.

(Full disclosure: Les Mis was the first musical I was involved in back in high school, as I played saxophone in the pit orchestra for Shawnee Mission South's production my junior year.  I reprised that gig my senior year when we put on Footlose.  I loved Les Mis then, too.)

Though plenty is lost in the book-to-musical transition (and how could it not, with Hugo's novel as long as it was...as my sister put it, "Victor sure didn't take any shortcuts"), the musical does stay pretty true to the novel itself, and I appreciated how the movie included a number of nods to the novel that were not, in fact, in the stage musical.

But one thing always gets me.

It's the finale, when "Do You Hear the People Sing" is reprised by almost the entire company.

I say "almost" because a few key players are missing.  Marius, Cosette, and the Thenardiers are still alive.

But Javert, who has died, is typically not portrayed as being present in the finale that is sung by the ghosts of Jean Valjean, Fantine, Eponine, Enjolras, and all those who were killed at the barricades.

I find that odd.

Why?

Because, if it isn't obvious by Valjean's lyrics in the finale ("forgive me all my trespasses and take me to your glory"), the presence of all the departed characters is meant to represent heaven.

Javert, the legalistic policeman who unflinchingly enforces the law to the letter, is not in heaven.

Yet, it is hard not to see his release of Jean Valjean and Marius as an act towards his own redemption, and a step away from the rigidity with which he administered justice in the past.

In essence, that moment that Jean Valjean is "born again" (for truly lack of a better term) as a result of witnessing the Bishop of Digne's kindness for him...I have to think that this was Javert's own such moment.

Had he lived.

There are two different reasons people have given me as to why Javert is not depicted in the finale--one is because he simply is the antagonist, but I think his release of Valjean puts to lie that theory.  He is capable of change, and of eventually acting morally even if it means breaking the law.  Perhaps that one act did not make up for a lifetime of Pharisee-esque legalism, and I am willing to admit that possibility.

But the other reason is far more sensitive--it is because Javert committed suicide, and suicide is traditionally treated as a sin in Christian teaching (though, interestingly enough, Moses, Elijah, and Jonah all asked God at one point to take their lives...following God is not always easy).

But the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church (and though I am not Catholic myself and do not agree with everything it says, I do still see Catholic moral teaching as relevant to contemporary Christianity) states that, among other things, anguish can diminish the moral responsibility of suicide. And Javert was nothing if not anguished when he made the terribly wrong decision to drown himself.

So if God judges us according to His mercy, as I believe from Scripture that He will, I confess that I left the film wondering why Javert was not present in heaven.

Because, in the end, my faith tells me that he just might be.

Yours in Christ,
Eric

This Week's Sermon: "As Dreamers Do"

Matthew 2:1-12 

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the territory of Judea during the rule of King Herod, magi came from the east to Jerusalem. 2 They asked, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We’ve seen his star in the east, and we’ve come to honor him.” 3 When King Herod heard this, he was troubled, and everyone in Jerusalem was troubled with him. 4 He gathered all the chief priests and the legal experts and asked them where the Christ was to be born. 5 They said, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what the prophet wrote: 6 You, Bethlehem, land of Judah, by no means are you least among the rulers of Judah, because from you will come one who governs, who will shepherd my people Israel.”[a] 7 Then Herod secretly called for the magi and found out from them the time when the star had first appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search carefully for the child. When you’ve found him, report to me so that I too may go and honor him.” 9 When they heard the king, they went; and look, the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stood over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were filled with joy. 11 They entered the house and saw the child with Mary his mother. Falling to their knees, they honored him. Then they opened their treasure chests and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 Because they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own country by another route." (CEB)

“As Dreamers Do,” Matthew 2:1-12

The African prisoners had just valiantly and violently won back their freedom from the slavers who dared to sell them.  Aboard a tiny slave ship bound from Cuba, they immediately sought out the direction of the sun—where it rose (in the east) would tell them in which direction home was.  By day, every day, they sailed in this direction.

Yet every night, two of the slavers who had been spared in order that they might help operate the ship would take the wheel and turn it westward once more, using the stars to tell which direction lay away from their prisoner’s homes in Africa.  The stars that might otherwise have continued to guide the Africans to their homes were instead exploited by their captors for a far more cowardly purpose.  And so, the ship made a zig-zag pattern up the eastern coast of the United States before landing in New England.  The legal drama that ensued ensured the fame of the Amistad Africans, whose valor was depicted in Steven Spielberg’s 1997 movie by the same name.

Like most Hollywood stories, it was made into a movie because it was a compelling saga.  It’s a compelling saga because it is one of people risking much for that which we take for granted.

Of course we take for granted that our default state is one of freedom.  We need know nothing of how to lead an insurrection, or navigate the high seas, or win over a complex legal system in order to enjoy what it is to be free.

Neither, then, must we know altogether that much these days to know God.  After all, a great number of churches will tell you that simply by getting on your knees and reciting a few words, you can achieve permanent salvation.

Because after all, salvation is a whole lot easier when someone else has done the work for it.

And those someone else’s who we think of—the disciples, Mary and Joseph, and most importantly, Jesus—would, I honestly think, be astonished at just how easy we have made it to become “saved” today.  There’s a reason we call it “cheap grace.”  Sometimes, in religion, you get what you pay for.

And the story of the Magi illustrates this maxim perfectly—getting out of spirituality what you put into it.  They put much of themselves in.  They give of their time, resources, and even physical safety without hesitation.  And though Scripture does not explicitly say so, Matthew implicitly says it all over the story—they reaped much religious richness for having done so.

And it isn’t just the giving of the gold, incense, and myrrh—the gift of presence mattered, in many ways, a lot more than it does today.  I realize that’s a bit of a stunner in this day of Facebook, where you wish someone a happy birthday by “liking” their status, but travel today involves next to none of the risks it entailed in ancient Israel.  There’s a reason why Jesus begins His parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke with a highway robbery victim—He invoked a crime so commonplace that it ensured His audience knew exactly what He was talking about.  And the Magi are traveling with those gifts—just like your mama told you never to carry a bunch of cash on you in case you get mugged…well, these fellas clearly weren’t listening to their mamas.

But Matthew tells us that isn’t the only risk the Magi took—they’re doing this at the behest of King Herod the Great—who got that moniker not by being a swell guy, but for all of the building projects he undertook as king, including the expansion of the Jerusalem temple.  We know from Matthew that Herod is a capricious, ruthless, calculating ruler—immediately after this passage in Matthew’s Gospel comes the massacre of the infant boys of Bethlehem, and the descent into Egypt by Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus.

And Herod is asking them to do this in secret—as verse 7 puts it, “Herod secretly called for the wise men…then he sent them to Bethlehem.”  What we remember as an act of devout worship by complete strangers began as a cloak-and-dagger spy mission…still fit for the Hollywood big screen, but certainly of a completely different genre.

So the Magi are not just risking their personal resources—whatever it cost them to obtain the gold, incense, and myrrh—and they are not just risking their time…and as men who were able to get an audience with the King of Judea with relative ease, their time was likely quite valuable.

They are risking their own personal safety if they get caught, be it by highway bandits or by Herod’s own soldiers, in which case they wouldn’t be robbed…they would most likely be accused of high treason to the crown.

And all for what?  That’s the million-dollar question, right?

They took great risk because they show great love.

It’s the moral we learn in Luke 7, from the woman who wept at Jesus’ feet in the home of Simon the Pharisee—Jesus says to Simon, “I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven, for she has shown great love.”  As a woman in ancient Israel, she took great risk in coming to Jesus alone.  But she showed great love, because she dared to dream that her sins were forgiven.

The Magi took great risk in coming to Jesus, and I can only think it is because they were like the anonymous woman—because they were capable of great love.  They were capable of navigating the stars and undermining a king and proffering great material gifts because they dared to dream that it could be so, that on the basis of a star, they believed that the true King had come to earth.

And in spite of all their risks, their lives were secured at the end of the story on the basis of…a dream.  We do not know who warned them in their dream to not return to Herod, but we can presume that they found their way home by that other road.

Their’s is an example we would do well to follow as we begin this new year, casting aside the shackles of what was a brutal December.  Indeed, we have already lived through the massacre of the innocents.  Matthew writes in quoting Jeremiah, “Rachel wept for her children, she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

We have wept for our nation’s children, for our world’s children, who are no more.  And we will continue to do so, because, in the end, being Christian is to be as the Magi are…to be dreamers capable of risk.  To be dreamers capable of feeling pain.  And to be dreamers who must, must be unafraid to turn themselves inside out and to assume all manner of vulnerability when worshiping the God who made them.

It’s what keeps that grace from becoming cheap. 

It’s what keeps our faith from becoming mere words and breath.

Their’s is the road to follow…a road that twists and turns away from the Herods of the world.

A road that guides us by starlight to baby boy.

And a road that has been trod by the many who have come before us.

That is the moral of the Magi—that we must do as they did.  We must do as dreamers do.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Rev. Eric Atcheson

Longview, Washington

January 6, 2013

Ready for 2013?

...in case it wasn't obvious from my previous post, I kinda am.  Even though 2012 was, in fact, a wonderful year for my congregation--our worship attendance grew by over 45%, we began a new children's Sunday School class, we started participating in a new mission program for our neighbors at Kessler Elementary School, and we repainted the entire freakin' building.  God has provided an abundance of will and energy to do great things here.

So, not bad for a year's work!

But I also wanted to give y'all a heads-up for some of the material I've got rolling around in my noggin for 2013...

First and foremost, I'll continue posting all of my sermons and columns here.  That part won't change.

What will, however, is an attempt by me to try to build a bit more continuity on the blog.  I've noticed that I preach better within larger arcs of continuity--hence why I preach almost entirely in sermon series throughout the year.  I've wondered if that might hold true for my blogging as well as for my preaching.

In that vein, I'm considering different options of what might make for a good series of blog posts.  I have thought about interviews with other young pastors in the Pacific Northwest who are, like me, engaging in building and rebuilding ministries with their churches.  I have also thought about making our Bible studies here at FCC partly accessible online, in that I would post a series of reflections based on what came out of those studies--questions, struggles, commentary, my own notes, etc.--for you to follow along and contribute to with your own discussion.

My own posts will likely continue in similar veins, though--a mixture of commentary on current affairs from a progressive Christian perspective and behind-the-scenes reflections on what ministry is truly, astoundingly, like.

Regardless of what I end up writing for the blog this year, I am very excited--and optimistic--for the prospects the year holds for my ministry here.

Which almost certainly means I need to go knock on wood immediately.

What are you most looking forward to in 2013?  What are you most hoping for?  What would you most like to see here at the Project in terms of posts, series, and content?

PS: Pasted below is also my preaching schedule for January, so that you can follow along with the new sermon series that begins on January 13.  It will be the first explicitly vision-casting sermon series I've done since the "Ashes to Sunlight" series when I first arrived here in 2011.  It will be based on the "to everything, there is a season" poem in Ecclesiastes 3, and I am really looking forward to it!

Yours in Christ,
Eric

January 2013 Worship Messages

January 6 (Epiphany Sunday): “As Dreamers Do,” Matthew 2:1-11

Post-Epiphany 2013: “A Time to Be Church: Envisioning a Promising Future”

January 13: “A Time to Break Down, a Time to Build Up,” Ecclesiastes 3:1-3

January 20: “A Time to Seek, a Time to Lose,” Ecclesiastes 3:1-6

January 27: “A Time to Tear, a Time to Sew,” Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Letters from the Soul: This Month's Newsletter Column

"From Darkness Into Light"

Dear Church,

I’ll be honest—I don’t think I’m emotionally ready for 2013.

It isn’t because I don’t want to be—I’m quite ready to say good riddance to how 2012 turned out.  Between our break-in and the shootings in Clackamas, Oregon and Newtown, Connecticut, December 2012 was one of the darkest months of my life.

But I’m still working on the moving on part.  There are no New Year’s Resolutions.  There is no new diet.  I’m still working on processing and remembering 2012, both the good and the bad.

Because truly, there was plenty of good, too—we had baptisms, weddings, birthday celebrations, and more as our church grew in both size and spirit last year.  Even after the break-in, I was humbled and heartened by how quickly so many of you stepped forward to help us restore our historic building.  To all of you who volunteered as a part of that effort, thank you.

I think what I regret in my case is allowing the good to be lost in, and overshadowed by, the bad. It’s something that Scripture always cautions me against.  It reminds me that there is light in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it (John 1:5).  But just like you, I sometimes have to remind myself just how bright and lovely the light of God really is.

So, that’s my hope for 2013—for a brighter light shining in whatever darkness is in my life, and in your lives, than perhaps what existed when 2012 ended.

After all, God is still here.  We just have to keep the hurts and pains of the world from interfering with our ability to see and search for Him and for His love, which is for each of us.

I wish all of you a blessed, safe, and happy 2013!

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Eric